


sins of the father

by blurhawaii



Category: True Detective
Genre: Alternative Canon, Anonymous Hook-up, Breathplay, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Intimacy, M/M, Under-negotiated Kink
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-14
Updated: 2019-12-14
Packaged: 2021-02-25 06:27:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,844
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21791581
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blurhawaii/pseuds/blurhawaii
Summary: Roland West buys him a cola to replace the one that's long since gone flat. "Noticed you're not much of a drinker," he says, while nursing a tumbler of his own. Something dark, the colour of honey, that Tom has yet to see him drink from.
Relationships: Tom Purcell/Roland West
Comments: 8
Kudos: 22
Collections: Yuletide 2019





	sins of the father

**Author's Note:**

  * For [education](https://archiveofourown.org/users/education/gifts).



> Happy Yuletide!
> 
> Honestly all of your prompts for this fandom were great. I wanted to write something for at least four of them but had to settle on just one. Hope you like it.

Tom’s not an expert at picking guys up from bars.

One time he tried, they made it as far as the men’s room. The guy had needed Tom’s steadying forearm to lower down onto his knees--hard floors and guys their age not a good combo, it turns out--and there was just something about that kind of intimacy that crossed the line for him. Had him thinking about church, weirdly enough, and all that he'd given up in the guise of self-improvement--drink, faith, and an unhealthy marriage--all to get where he was right now.

He'd flinched when the guy had gone for his belt buckle, then hip-checked him into the stall door in his panic to get away.

The one vice he'd left himself, and the one he was shit-poor at chasing.

It took him a month to go back, stupidly thinking there would be repercussions. But no one wants to be that guy, starting a fight with their dick still hanging out.

Another time, Tom made it as far as the guy’s car. He'd thought the guy was taking him home; he'd been wrong.

Devils den rose out of the treetops on metal legs, a beacon of mundane terror.

Five years ago, Tom had collapsed at the base of that thing and howled until his voice broke, face cracking in two from the cold November air hitting his sweat soaked skin. His feet were bleeding in his work boots, and all he had to combat the long night ahead of him was a flashlight he kept pointed at the edge of the tree line he'd just come crashing through.

He must have passed out at some point because he woke later to the blinding sight of twin headlights. Two plain-clothes officers stepped out and Tom could hear the hiss of the radio through the open car door. While one of them went to answer it, the other--shaggy blond hair, kind of short, sheep-skin jacket--he disappeared around the back of the car then came back with a blanket, which he threw around Tom's shoulders before dragging him to his feet.

They took him home, where he didn't want to be, and stood silently at his side as he fumbled his keys with numb hands. A hand eventually snaked around and took them from him, opening the door with ease. "Have a safe rest of the night, Mr Purcell," he said softly, pressing the keys back into his grasp, their fingers brushing--the shock of their warmth brought tears to Tom's eyes--and then they left him.

No one around to see Tom crawl into Will's room and fall asleep curled up on the floor, his head tilted back against the comforter. Will's quiet breathing soothing him like the shock of that cold air meeting the heat of a kind hand.

He can't stand to drive past that place now, even half a decade later. Had kicked and screamed his way out of that stranger’s car and walked home. Another itch left unscratched.

Roland West buys him a cola to replace the one that's long since gone flat. "Noticed you're not much of a drinker," he says, while nursing a tumbler of his own. Something dark, the colour of honey, that Tom has yet to see him drink from. Gives him a cigarette too, from his own supply. Lights it off the one held between his lips and then hands it over, entirely straight-faced.

His sleeves are turned up to his elbows and he has a pair of sunglasses folded over his top shirt button. It's still light outside, an odd time for anyone sound of mind to be drinking alone. 

Roland smiles, a flash of white teeth.

Tom takes him home.

He's learnt his lesson from all his previous attempts. His own car, his own home; control is the key, without making it seem that way. Will's staying over with one of his friends and Roland didn't push him for a last name, even when he offered his own.

The conditions are about as good as they're gonna get.

Most guys go right for the belt. Tom's made his peace with that now, can swallow down the initial flood of distaste like he dry swallows aspirin after the fact, tough but necessary. He doesn't particularly like any of the people he brings home. More often than not, he wants them out of his life as soon as physically possible. He doesn't want to give them a chance to notice the childish drawings clipped to his fridge, curling up at the edges with age, or the colourful fan of Batman comics Will left open on the coffee table that morning at breakfast. 

They usually appreciate the lack of pretence.

Roland kisses him the moment they're through the door. Cups Tom's face between his hands and dives right in. Tom hasn't kissed anyone since Lucy and even that petered out long before they stopped fucking. He's never kissed a guy at all, never wanted to. They're standing in the middle of his hallway, nowhere near a wall; Tom could peel Roland's hands away from his face and retreat back over his line of acceptable intimacy. But it feels good.

"This okay?" Roland asks, mouthing along the soft part of Tom's cheek. He doesn't even bother to open his eyes and why would he, he's got Tom pretty well anchored.

"Bit fucking late to be asking, isn't it?"

"Yes, sir."

Tom's too close to see it but he feels the answering smile as it curves against his skin. He grabs Roland by his tacky two-toned jacket and centres him back onto his mouth. Roland's sunglasses go skidding across the floor where neither of them go looking.

There's a moment when Tom's dragging him over to the couch. Roland stops and like a chain reaction down the line, Tom does too. A quick scan of the room doesn't turn up anything incriminating, as far as he can tell. Will packed up his homework before he left and the door leading to his bedroom is firmly shut. There's nothing that should be setting off Roland's sad, single dad alarm. Other than Tom's whole fucking demeanour, that is. But if that hasn't done it yet, no reason why it should now.

The moment lasts long enough for Tom to take the blanket down from the back of the couch and spread it over the cushions. Roland's hands find his hips, turning him around, and then his mouth is back on Tom's, harsher and slicker than before, an apology without the words.

Tom's already hard, the novelty of such focused attention doing wonders for his dick. He can feel himself unfurling from the years of stress, standing straighter, and it leaves him with an inch or so over Roland, a subtle tilting back of his head gifting Tom a hint of the control he's been craving. It's not much to work with though, unless Roland's willing to back down all the way--in Tom's relatively limited experience, most guys would rather chew off their own arm--but Roland goes right ahead and surprises him again.

He lets Tom manhandle him onto the couch, where his hands then curiously go straight for the blanket. Roland takes fistfuls of the old thing, twisting it out of shape before letting his head thump back against the armrest. Tom watches him go through the motions while his dick throbs in his jeans. Roland's not hard yet, not even close, and when he catches Tom looking he reaches out, snagging Tom's belt loop to pull him down on top of him, blanket completely forgotten.

"Nothing against you, Tom," he says, by way of explanation. "Just that it's been one of those days and I was drinking long before you showed up. That's all." He's not embarrassed to say it so Tom believes him. Has him wondering though, what had Roland downing Southern Comfort all alone in the mid-afternoon. Can't have been too bad if Tom and his lonely Coca-Cola were able to snap him out of it.

As long as it's not a fight with his wife, Tom's good to go.

From their new position, Roland tries to pull him in close. To slot their mouths back together, to rub more of his stubble against patches of Tom's skin that are already lighting up red, to draw this out far longer than it needs to be. But Tom locks his arms before it can happen.

"Enough with the hand-holding, alright?" Tom says, while sliding their legs together in a way that's not going to send one of them spilling to the ground. "I don't need to be petted and sweet talked to get me into the mood. You know how this goes. I just wanna get my dick wet then never have to see you again." He grinds his hardness down onto Roland's thigh, unable to stop himself from adding, "Nothing against you," as he watches the colour start to spread up from Roland's open shirt collar.

Roland's breathing hard as he stares up at Tom but he looks pissed too, for a fraction of a second, then it slides away to become something flat, non-confrontational. Tom's probably not what he expected at all but the joke's on both of them because the feeling is mutual.

"You're the boss, boss," Roland says at last, hands held up in mock surrender. He doesn't fight a thing when Tom finally goes for his belt.

No amount of stroking or grappling gets Roland any stiffer than barely-there-at-all but he lets Tom keep trying, all while he lies there patiently dipping his hands in and out of Tom's undershirt. The careful touches to his stomach and the small of his back--very rarely Roland will curl his fingers into the waistband of his jeans before abruptly changing direction--they're sustaining Tom's arousal at a low simmer, but never bringing it to boil. It's frustrating and so damn good at the same time that he's taking it out on Roland, who seems content to take it, without wincing or sighing. Martyring himself in a way that wasn't what Tom was asking for.

He wanted heat that goes both ways, he wanted this to be over with already, he wanted his dick out of his jeans, at the very least.

Tom settles back on his heels, letting Roland fall limp against his own thigh. There's a headache brewing behind his eyes and he wants to scrape his hair back from his face, but he's all too aware of where his hands have been and why there's a damp, tacky feeling on his fingertips. Roland moves to get his elbows under him, pinning Tom's thigh over his with a firm hand that’s probably meant to be encouraging. He opens his mouth to say something saccharine, most likely, then shifts gears when he feels Tom tense in warning.

"Let me up," Roland says, digging his thumb into the crease of Tom's leg. Once they're both on their knees, facing each other, he reaches out for Tom's neck. Laces his fingers together at his nape and brings their foreheads close. "What do you want? Tell me plain, Tom, because I ain't a mind reader."

It's that deliberate over-stepping of intimacy again, a line that Roland blanks like a guy on the street he knew back in high-school, shoved into a locker one time but couldn't pick out of a line-up twenty years later. Boundaries were something he tried once, until a girlfriend called him frigid and a dick, unable to commit to anything. Now he gives himself over fully, body and soul, aggressively kind and still kind of a dick about it. Tom was always the guy in the locker, growing up--all the same problems, as well as being bundled up into a locker--and he shuts his eyes now so he doesn't have to see that Roland's are shut too.

Tom leans back, Roland bearing his weight by his hold on his neck, forced to move with him. He keeps tilting until he's horizontal, trapped under a body that's bigger than him, heavier, and with his hands wrapped around Tom's throat.

Roland doesn’t catch on right away. A mind reader he certainly is not. He lets Tom direct him however he wants, which is a thrill in itself, and then he simply flicks his thumb against the underside of Tom’s jaw. A slow drag against grain that has Tom bucking up, chasing friction anywhere else he can. Roland doesn’t squeeze until Tom coaxes the motion out of him and then there’s an ever so brief lick of pressure, a hint of breathlessness, before Roland pulls his hands away, dragging them over to rest on Tom's shoulders.

“I’m not here to hurt you, Tom," Roland tells him straight. "No offense meant to you, but I get nothing outta that kind of thing.” The proof is pressed up against Tom, making his own painful throbbing seem perverse in comparison. He struggles to push Roland off but all it does is draw attention to the fact. And Roland's not budging; motherfucker probably thinks he's right back home at a rodeo. “Now, hold on a minute," he presses on, "let me finish before you get all bent out of shape. I was gonna say if that’s a deal breaker for you, well, I’d be a hell of a lot more comfortable doing this the other way around.”

The breath Tom didn't want to take stutters in his chest. He blinks up at Roland, amazed and bitter at the ease in which he’s offering something Tom’s only ever whimpered and charaded his way through asking. So close, but never quite making it into words that matter. And he feels revolted. At himself, at Roland, at the timeline of events that have led them here, to this moment. That something this vulnerable could be misconstrued as a kindness.

“Forget it,” Tom spits, in much the same way he wants to say _fuck you_. “It’s not what you think. I wouldn’t do that to you. It’s not--it’s not like that.”

“Then what’s it like, Tom?” As a counterpoint to the question that leaves Tom reeling, Roland sweeps his hair back for him, follows the curve around and down to rest in the curls at the base of his skull, before starting the motion back up again. Dangerously close to the petting Tom said he didn't want or need; it doesn't soften the blow nearly as much as Roland probably hopes it does. "You think your kids would want you hurting yourself, Tom? Your boy? Getting strangers to do it for you ain't no free pass."

Five years ago, Tom Purcell lost his daughter like people lose their keys. Set her down one day and the next thing he knew she was gone.

Roland, like the whole goddamn state, has probably seen her picture in the Arkansas Times--little Julie Purcell staring back, not a single day older than the day she disappeared--and is operating under the mistaken impression that Tom needs to be handled with care. What that actually means is that Roland has been doing a little obfuscating of his own. Because Roland knows him, fucking _knows_ him, and probably has all along. Didn’t need the Batman comics or Tom’s last name, he just looked across the bar and saw him staring down the barrel of that flat Coca-Cola and remembered, remembered that _this_ was the poor guy from the news that misplaced a whole damn person.

People react differently when they find out you've lost a kid. When all Tom wanted was a fight, something to rage against, what he got instead was kindness and a blind willingness to let shit slide. Time off from work, when he needed it the least. Sunday prayers, casserole dinners in tupperware containers. A clean divorce and a kid that stayed. Kindness, in all its forms.

A kiss that lasted for hours, hands cupping his face, his neck. Roland wanting to gift him what the church never managed to do--forgiveness, in the form of his dry lips brushing against Tom's forehead.

A fresh drink and an offered cigarette.

A warm hand gripping his arm, dragging him to his feet.

A blanket thrown over his shoulders and a ride home from the cold and lonely woods where his daughter was last seen.

Oh.

It occurs to Tom, right then and there, that this is not the first time he's let Roland take him home.

"Kinda thought you'd remembered me back at the bar," Roland confesses, face buried in Tom's neck. The first hint of humility, that Tom isn't allowed to see. "Me and my partner taking you home that night, but maybe I was more gone than I thought. Told you I'd been drinking. Then we were coming back here and it was too late to say anything, in case of me being wrong--but that fucking blanket, man, I couldn't believe it--and I didn't want you thinking what you're thinking right now, Tom. That you're a charity case, 'cause that ain't it at all."

Roland's saying this to him like a chorus on repeat. Over and over in different ways, while he rakes Tom’s shirt up his sides, seeking skin he's barely even touched until now. He presses his nose into Tom's cheek, lips brushing his, along with the words, and something’s finally cracked him wide open, it seems, like the weight of keeping that terrible secret was holding back a tidal wave. He's so sincere now that Tom can't help but listen. Can't help but believe him, ramblings and all.

"And I know you must hate to hear this but I'm real sorry that happened to you, Tom. No one deserves that--some people, they just don't ever come back from it, they just disappear too. But not you, Tom. You've done right by that kid. Best you could do, given the circumstances. And I'm proud of you, man, I want you to know that, if nothing else."

"Fuck you," is all Tom can think to say. He's as tense as he's ever been, his eyes squeezed shut. Roland's right, he doesn't want to hear this. But Roland just won't stop.

He's dropping praise all over Tom's body, _you're good, Tom, so, so good,_ with each frantic press of his mouth. He reaches down between them for Tom's belt and Tom fists his hands in the back of Roland's shirt, holding on. When Roland finally gets his hand on Tom's dick he's as gentle as he's been all night. Even after Tom lets out a frustrated noise, low in his throat, and bucks up into his grip, Roland eases him back down to the couch and uses the heel of his hand to push Tom's dick up against his stomach. Muttering yet more praise and giving him nothing resembling relief.

"Motherfucker," Tom whines, his whole body taut. He kicks out, catching Roland in the shin and he gets a hiss that dissolves into an amused sound in return. "Roland, come on, please."

The last tether holding Roland back snaps at hearing his own name being thrown back at him. All of a sudden Tom's got hands either side of his face--one still suspiciously damp, making him shiver in arousal and disgust, in equal measure--and then Roland's kissing him again. Open mouthed and greedy, so much better than before. He's taking this from Tom instead of giving it--the pleasure--at long last. Roland starts rocking his hips and Tom feels him finally, hard against his thigh.

It doesn’t take them long to find a rhythm that satisfies them both.

Roland takes a sip of his offered coffee and badly hides his grimace. Either not enough sugar or not enough creamer. Tom stands to get both but is stopped when Roland snags his wrist.

“Don’t bother,” Roland says, while working his mouth over with his tongue. “I can drink it like this.”

He makes to pull him back down but Tom shakes him loose. Not harsh, he’s still got Roland cooling on his skin, and it’s hard not to be magnanimous with the guy you were willing to let choke you out not even an hour ago. He’s firm enough to have Roland let go without feeling jilted.

“Don’t be stupid,” Tom says, hitching his jeans up from where they’re slipping down his hips. “Be right back.”

For a long time, Tom just breathes, alone in his kitchen. He washes his hands in the sink, puts away the bowl Will used this morning at breakfast, stands and lets himself think. He realigns himself; the man he is now with the man that used to put both of his kids to bed. Assures himself that they are one and the same.

He takes a detour on his way back from the kitchen and braves lowering down onto his knees in order to fish Roland's sunglasses out from under the phone table. Roland's praise is ringing in his ears still, the hot, wrung-out feeling in Tom's gut attempting to flare up again at the memory, but it's got absolutely nothing to do with why Tom does him this one favour. He hands the sunglasses over with the sugar and gets that same flash of white teeth he got back at the bar--the one that started all of this--calling him out for a liar.

Roland immediately takes the sugar, pouring an obscene amount into his drink. For a moment, Tom thinks he’s being deliberately appeased again until Roland braves another mouthful that has his eyes slipping shut in muted pleasure.

Tom watches the line of his throat as he swallows, not really thinking at all when he says, “Not even my kid chases a sugar high like that.”

He regrets it as soon as he says it, he’s upset the balance so bad, they’ll be clinging to the rails to keep them from falling off this post-orgasmic bliss. But Roland surprises him, in much the same way he’s been doing all night, by leaning back into Tom’s lumpy couch with a sigh instead of making a run for the door.

His hand finds Tom’s thigh in the dark, the sudden touch making him jump and Roland being the gentleman that he is moves it around to stroke lazily up and down his back instead. This feels dangerously more intimate than jerking each other off. Even more so than having Roland’s hand wrapped around his throat. Almost domestic in a way that Tom would hate to get used to.

“I’m willing to listen if you’re willing to talk, Tom. No judgement here, just a friendly ear." 

Roland's eyes stay closed, his head tilted back against the couch. He's fingering the blanket with the hand that's not touching Tom and he's relaxed. Not looking for a way out at all.

Tom hasn't been relaxed in five years, so he starts talking and doesn't stop.


End file.
